Baby, you're a Fiiiirework! Other than being constantly surrounded by an ever-moving mass of rainbow-hued sparks, Firework is your typical 16-year-old geeky kid just trying to get along and get by. ...and maybe save the world while he's at it.
As Firework, a cloud of multi-colored “sparks” surround him, and a few stray sparks tend to dart about the general area around him. He’s psychically linked to them, can share their perceptions of the world, and they “do favors” for him, like granting him flight, protecting him from harm, lifting heavy things, hurting bad people, etc.
- Senses: All-Around + Darkvision, rank 2: The cloud of sparks surrounding Firework provides 360-degree vision and sight in total darkness as if it were full daylight. He can make Perception checks for any direction around him. Others cannot use Stealth to hide from Firework without some other concealment. (Flaw: Noticeable.)
- Flight, rank 5: Firework’s friends grant him flight of up to 60 mph (or 900 ft in a move action). His flight is self-sustaining, such that he remains hanging in the air if incapacitated. (Extra: Increased Duration to Continuous.)
- Summon Sparks (Environment Control: Light), rank 1: A cloud of mulit-colored “sparks” surround Firework, and a few stray sparks tend to dart about the general area around him. This raises the light level in a 30-foot radius around him, lowering darkness-related concealment by one rank: total concealment to partial, partial to none. (Extra: Increased Duration to Continuous.)
- Spark Swarm (Array Power)
- Move Object (Array Primary), rank 9: Firework’s friends can lift and move things besides Firework. The sparks’ effective Strength is equal to power rank, allowing them to lift up to 12 tons. By taking a move action to concentrate, Firework can increase this by +1 Str, changing the effect’s duration to Concentration, and allowing his sparks to lift up to 25 tons (and may still stack Extra Effort on top of this). Firework’s friends can also perform fine manipulations, like tying/untying knots, typing, or manipulating controls. (Extra: Precise.)
- Force Attack (Array Secondary), rank 9: When offensive action is necessary, Firework’s friends streak forth in a spiraling, tightly clustered group attack on a single target, treated as a single blunt force attack. The target resists with Toughness.
- Harrying Attack (Affliction, Array Secondary), rank 9: When Firework needs to take an enemy out of battle quickly, he sends a small cloud of his wildest and most annoying sparks to surround and harry the enemy. Each spark repeatedly attacks individually at any exposed or vulnerable area and/or clinging to moving limbs to hamper movement, etc. No single spark does significant damage, but the whole effect can be thoroughly debilitating. The target resists with Fortitude versus 10 + power rank (8), and success thwarts the attack. One degree of failure dazes the target, two degrees stuns, and three degrees incapacitates.
- Quickness (Array Secondary), rank 8: By focusing on a single goal, allowing himself to become completely immersed in the consciousness of his swarm, and giving his sparks complete freedom of mobility, Firework can perform routine tasks (anything that can be done as a Routine Check) exceedingly fast. For most tasks, the outside observer may notice nothing more than a rainbow-hued blur of lights in the general area of the task to be performed accompanied by a breeze created by displaced air and matter.
- Remote Sensing (Array Secondary), rank 3: While maintaining his own senses, Firework can simultaneously process the point of view of one of his sparks up to 250 feet away. Sight, sound, and touch are carried through the sensory link. (Extra: Simultaneous. Flaw: Noticeable.)
- Communication, Auditory (Array Secondary), rank 2: Firework’s sparks can instantly relay/communicate audible messages to anyone in range. “Connection” is instantaneous with any subject in range, though the communication itself takes the normal amount of time to convey spoken words. Firework may also simultaneously “broadcast” the same message to multiple (or all) targets within range while choosing to exclude other specific targets. A spark manifesting near the message recipient and pulsing in time with the spoken words typically accompanies this effect. If connection is maintained, a spark in orbit about the head marks affected individuals. (Extras: Area, Selective. Flaw: Noticeable.)
- Healing (Array Secondary), rank 8: Firework can heal Damage conditions on himself or others by making a DC 10 Healing check. When healing others, Firework’s spark swarm can be seen enveloping the target, and many sparks assume a rare moment of stillness against the target’s skin before slowly sinking below the flesh. For a moment or two afterward, Firework’s swarm appears less dense than normal (though there is no actual game effect).
- Kyle Brennan is a 16-year-old geek. He’s the lonely, misunderstood child of a divorced family. He dresses in dark clothes, just a shade short of being goth. He’s skinny and not the athlete his father wanted him to be. His spiky, dark hair defies being tamed. He’s cute, but awkward.
- One day during the early stages of his parents’ divorce, an imaginary friend appears in the form of a brightly glowing spark of light floating in the air next to him. It bugs him that he’s hallucinating, but only a little. He was already different and an outcast. What’s one more oddity in the collection?
- At first the spark only appeared when he was at home, feeling safe and secure in his bedroom. As his life settles into a new routine and his confidence begins to grow (partly due to the comfort he gets from interactions with the spark), more sparks begin to appear until there’s a literal cloud of multi-colored sparks appearing whenever he’s alone.
- His mom accepts the stories about his “friends,” and hopes that it’s just a phase that he’ll grow out of. It’s obvious to Kyle that while she accepts what he tells her, talk of his friends also worries her, so he simply stops talking about them.
- The Breaking: Kyle (under duress) and his father were going camping for the weekend. While crossing the Golden Gate Bridge into the Marin headlands, traffic comes to a full stop. There are strange phenomena that feel like earthquakes and tidal surges, causing the bridge to begin to collapse. Kyle remembers being thrown over his father’s shoulder as they run for their lives, and then there was a strange weightless sensation and a bright light and nothing more.
- …until Kyle wakes up in a strange place. Kyle and four strangers have been taken to the Never Never for training in newly gifted abilities.
- Kyle and his new companions are returned to SF from where they left it at the site of the Golden Gate Bridge, but the bridge isn’t there anymore. Thankfully Kyle’s friends come to rescue, holding them all in midair where the bridge used to be. After fleeing a boat full of tourists with cameras (hopefully none with a telephoto lens), they discover that while they spent what felt like days in the Never Never, an entire year has passed in the San Francisco that they left behind.
- mysterious powers or psychological disorder: Who are Kyle’s sparky friends? Are they part of him or something else entirely? If they’re part of him, is there something wrong with him? Does he have a split personality, and is that dangerous? If they’re something else, do they really have his best interests at heart? Can he trust them?
- motivation: acceptance: Kyle has always been a loner, never fitting in and never living up to his father’s expectations.
- relationship: dad: James Brennan. Kyle may outwardly scoff his father’s athletic expectations, but he inwardly yearns for (and seeks) his father’s approval. Kyle’d dad was on the Golden Gate Bridge during the breaking. After the event he was found on the Sausalito side of the bridge in a coma along with many other people. None of these people have come out of the coma since that day, and attempts to paranormally heal or telepathically contact those folks have most often ended with the WTF who made the attempt slipping into the same comatose state.
- relationship: mom: Kyle’s mom, Samantha Brennan, gained custody of Kyle in the divorce. She is the typical nurturing parent. She always looked out for him, sheltering him from his father’s expectations and comforting him in a world that doesn’t seem to understand him, but she was never what anyone would call an “independent woman.” After the divorce, Kyle took care of her as much as she took care of him. Samantha came out as a lesbian after the breaking while Kyle was missing (in the Never Never), and her new life partner is Darla Stevens, an attorney specializing in employment law and frequently representing employees against their current or former employers.